Sometimes serious. Sometimes humorous. Always unpredictable. By Dan Pimentel - Welcome to the Airplanista Aviation Blog, where I take a lighthearted look at general and business aviation, the airlines, and the incredible and generous community of aviators called #Avgeeks...they are my aviation family. I am currently available for magazine and corporate writing assignments - Email me here.

4:24 PM

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiii!

Over the weekend, I became a gamer, sort of. No, not the kind of gamer who sits for days playing Dungeons and Dragons, or the kind that gets off blasting cops and hookers in a simulated 'hood. And certainly not the kind of gamer that gets points for generating MASSIVE amounts of blood, dude:

In fact, to be crystal clear, I have always been opposed to violent video games. While not a scientist or psychologist, I believe there is a direct correlation between the amount of violence we seen in today's society and the creation of so many shoot-em-up video games. Anyone who lets impressionable children have simulated FUN killing anything is just training those tots to resort to that kind of thing later in life when some clown cuts them off in the mall parking lot and they go ballistic. In my generation, we just never saw anyone go postal on anyone else after playing a heated game of Pac Man. Take a look at the front page of tomorrow's newspaper, the one thing this world does not need is MORE violence.

No, I am not a member of that gaming community, but I am now a Wii owner. My wife surprised me with Nintendo's unbelievable console, and we also somehow picked up a rare copy of Wii Fit. If you have ever used a Wii, you'll already know this drill:

If you were like me, you thought there was really no way this Wii gizmo could actually work very well. Flailing around your living room with a little remote in your hand simulating the movement you make when you hit a tennis ball or launch a bowling ball? Give me a break, this is technology gone wild. If it works anything like the $100 wireless headphones I recently returned because they were worthless Chinese junk, the Wii will be jumpy and become unreliable the minute my neighbor turns on his electric toothbrush. Oh how wrong I was!

This Wii is amazing in so many ways. It is scary accurate, and will mimic your EXACT hand movements of great games such as golf, bowling, winter sports, tennis etc. The exercise "games" in the Wii Fit program makes exercising fun, and should get quite a few potatoes off the couch, including moi.

So as I became enthralled by Wii, I immediately went to the place I always go...aviation. Since this little Wii remote is so incredibly accurate, wouldn't it make a KILLER joystick for a Wii P-51 Mustang? Sure, there are a few flying games out there, but from the reviews I have read, none of them makes you sweat like X-Plane or MS Flight Simulator:

See, not all aviators want to shoot up Messerschmitt's over Berlin. Some of us more peace-loving flyers want nothing more then to blast through a simulated sky in a virtual taildragger, or try to land a -47 at a virtual JFK. If the Wii technology was to get married to the extreme realism of X-plane, it would be one of the best things to happen to the flight sim community in years. I can see Wii/X-Plane flyers actually needing to post sicksacs around the living room for their virtual passengers.

The art at the top of this post was found on vgboxart.com, an "enthusiast site for box art/covers" that allows video game box designers to post their work. I stumbled upon the fake Microsoft Flight Simulator for Wii box cover by robbier, and went crazy thinking I had found the Holy Grail. But after burning rubber down the onramp getting onto the information superhighway, to my dismay, I soon found that this game does not exist...or does it?

If anyone knows of any Wii flight sims out there that achieve the kind of realism found in X-Plane or MSFS, please hit the "Send me feedback" button at the top right of this page and send me a link.